FTW, February
11, 2002 -- On January 18, Guerrilla News Network
won the Audience Award in the "live-action" category
at the 2002 Sundance Online Film Festival. GNN took the
prize for its ten minute documentary "Crack The CIA",
a film laying down clear, concise, irrefutable evidence
of the CIA's long involvement in bringing and selling huge
amounts of cocaine into America.
The Audience Award is determined by voters at the festival,
as well as online viewers around the world.

Using cutting edge video and editing techniques,
"Crack The CIA" is a stunning piece of film as
well as a damning indictment of the U.S.
government's criminal activities. Directed by GNN's Stephen
Marshall, edited by Marshall and Kenji Williams, and with
an original Hip-Hop soundtrack by DJ Trek-e, the film won
acclaim for its cinematic excellence as well as its content.
Guerrilla News Network is an alternative news organization
dedicated to providing web, television and film viewers
with information ignored or only partially covered by mainstream
media.

"Crack The CIA" is based primarily
on interviews with four people with impeccable credentials:
Cele Castillo, former DEA agent who personally witnessed
CIA cocaine transactions in Central America; Mara Leveritt,
reporter and editor at The Arkansas Times who investigated
and reported on massive CIA cocaine operations in Mena,
Arkansas; Professor Christopher Simpson of American University
in Washington, DC, an acknowledged authority on CIA drug
operations; and Mike Ruppert,
a former Los Angeles Police Department narcotics investigator,
and publisher/editor of From The Wilderness newsletter and
the website www.copvcia.com.

The film contains an amazing segment, originally
broadcast on C-SPAN and ABC’s NIGHTLINE, of the now-legendary
confrontation between Mike Ruppert
and then CIA Director John Deutch. Filmed at a November,
1996 town hall meeting at Locke High School in South Central
Los Angeles in response to detailed press reports of CIA
cocaine dealing, Ruppert gets right in Deutch's face with
the evidence of CIA Drug trafficking he obtained after witnessing
CIA drug dealing in 1977. His original discovery ended his
LAPD career and started him on investigations he is continuing
24 years later. His newsletter is now read in 27 countries
and by 20 members of the US
congress.

Ruppert's accusations were accompanied
by the standing-room only crowd's cheers and whistles. Ruppert,
an ex-cop who has been shot at, burglarized and threatened
because of his whistleblowing, describes these as some of
the scariest moments of his life.

Watching John Deutch attempt to assemble
a coherent answer to Ruppert's statements is the film's
jaw-dropping moment. Hunched over, wringing his hands, the
former CIA Director never denies the charges. Instead, he
suggests that anyone knowing of CIA criminal activity contact
the Los Angeles Police Department, the CIA Inspector General,
or their local congressperson. Even on the screen the crowd's
derisive hoots and catcalls are palpable. It's rumored that
Deutch didn't get his hoped-for appointment as Secretary
of Defense because of his performance that day at LockeHigh School.

Films that do well at Sundance usually
go on to wider release. Word from festival attendees is
that Sundance head, actor/director Robert Redford, is quite
enthusiastic about "Crack The CIA". One can only
hope that as much of the public as possible gets to see
this unique combination of film-making prowess and hard-nosed
investigative journalism.